ProSiebenSat.1 Group’s Sat.1 and ProSieben stations begin broadcasting HDTV

Bavarian Governor Stoiber launches HDTV in Europe

Munich, October 26, 2005. Bavarian Governor Edmund Stoiber launched the new HDTV television standard in Europe today as part of the Medientage München media event in Munich. In a ceremony at noon, Dr. Stoiber pushed the Red Button for Sat.1 HD and ProSieben HD. The ProSiebenSat.1 Group is the first TV corporation in Europe to use the new high-resolution broadband format, and its two channels will be broadcasting in HDTV alongside the standard format. Both HD stations will be available starting today via the ASTRA satellite system.

“HDTV makes the television picture significantly better. The new digital TV technology is a step into the future of television. With Sat.1 HD and ProSieben HD, we’re helping the new high-resolution standard get established,” said Guillaume de Posch, CEO of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group. “I’m delighted that the impetus for the entire European market has originated from Germany. It shows that the German TV market is not just one of the most competitive, but also one of the most innovative in the world.”

The ProSiebenSat.1 Group plans to strengthen this initiative for the further evolution of TV with cooperative ventures with companies from the TV hardware industry. ProSieben has an arrangement with Sony, and Sat.1 has one with Sharp Electronics Germany/Austria. Both ventures are planning extensive, long-term multimedia marketing campaigns on HDTV to alert consumers to the immense improvement in quality that the high-resolution format offers.

The new HDTV (high-definition television) standard has twice the lines of resolution of conventional analog or digital TV, making picture quality so vivid that the image on the screen seems almost three-dimensional. Sat.1 HD and ProSieben HD will be simulcast in the high definition mode. Parts of programs that were either not produced or not available in native HTDV format will be upconverted to at least DVD quality.

Sat.1 HD and ProSieben HD will be distributed using the new DVB-S 2 modulation process via ASTRA 19.2° east and Transponder 102. Both stations will be showing HDTV content in 1080i/25 format (25 frames per second) using the improved MPEG4/AVC compression standard. Besides crystal-clear, enticingly sharp images in 16:9 format, viewers with the right equipment can also enjoy Dolby Digital sound. Audio encoding uses the AC3 standard. An American firm, Conexant, provided the first MPEG4 decoding for Sat.1 HD and ProSieben HD at Medientage München.

To let viewers know which broadcasts are in true HDTV format, the ProSiebenSat.1 Group has developed an HDTV icon that will appear in programming magazines.